Despite winning a Supreme Court decision that confirmed its right to build a Class II casino in Aquinnah on Marsha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe is delaying the Aquinnah Cliffs Casino under another legal challenge.
The opponents, the town of Aquinnah, don’t deny the tribe’s right to build a casino on its reservation, but they contend that the bingo casino is subject to land use regulations of the island.
The tribe and representatives of the town appeared in a federal courtroom last week under the gavel of Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV.
An Aquinnah tribal council member Naomi Carney exclaimed in an interview with the Boston Globe, “I wish they would just leave us alone and let us take care of our tribal people. That’s all we’re trying to do, is give our tribal members a fighting chance. . . . We were there first. Get off our backs.”
Saylor has seen the litigants in his courtroom before. He ruled against the tribe and for the town several years ago, only to see his ruling overruled by an appeals court. IN 2017 the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act trumps an agreement the tribe signed when it acquired the land, which subjected it to local and state laws.
The town’s contention is that while the tribe is entitled under IGRA to offer gaming, that the agreement it signed to subject itself to local land use regulations still holds.
The town has partnered with Global Gaming Solutions, a subsidiary of the Chickasaw Nation to build a modest 10,000 square foot bingo facility. Work began in February. A summer opening was planned but now that has been pushed back to autumn, according to Carney.
The town’s attorneys asked the judge to require that the tribe apply for a building permit for their casino. The tribe’s lawyers countered that the tribe has a right, now recognized, to build on sovereign land.
